Exhibition

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The space between nothing and everything

Erik Sausa

April 27 - May 27, 2023

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I would love to produce new works that go beyond painting by expressing it through handwriting. Writings that became paintings. Paintings that hide the writings. Hence, the space between nothing and everything. This idea harks back to my recollection of repetitive writing on the blackboard and on our notepads when we are instructed to read and write in grade schools. I think of these acts as ireful, as if there was no end in sight, until you hear the last bell of the day save you from the painstaking chore of writing. We were the GenX kids who had experienced the remnants of the Post-American colonial education while being force-fed with Nutribuns in our small town.

 

Another thing that occurs to me about this process is the act of defacement, wall graffiti or a kind of erasure of something you don’t want to remember anymore. But as subjective as it can be, the handwriting/brush strokes are more tactile via thick oil paints. This method became a complete new painting.

 

I would also like to note the persisting childhood trauma about me questioning the vastness of the universe and the limbo of emptiness (nothingness) which frightened me to no end. But I learned to ignore it while growing up. Concurrently, it presents itself parallel to a horror film that I can’t even watch alone.

 

I am aiming to re-work those amazing pieces I’ve witnessed during my interlude at the College of Fine Arts, and what had perturbed me most were those methods and thought-processes made by my colleagues who were under Chabet’s school of thought. My objective for this show is to re-imagine those disciplines (that became part of our practice up to this day). Another artist that comes to my mind with this kind of method was Cy Twombly, some works are also inspired by my colleagues like Eric Roca and Annie Valencia. Also channeling Roland Barthes’ papers entitled “The Author is Dead’’.

 

The idiomatic expression– “writings on the wall”, is a form of questioning and abruptly deconstructed to be an act of erasure/concealment of what was read/understood at first. Personally, the title implies both the cycled nature of the pedagogical journey and scientific knowledge about how we question life in general or maybe beyond that. And these are questions always unanswered.

 

There’s a point in your life when you’re working your ass off unbothered and just enjoying every minute of it, trying out every possible way you’ve learned (all by yourself plus the interactions with other artists and mentors) — critical thinking, methods and techniques, analytical and political. I think it is because I am always trying to challenge myself (and fail a lot of times). But that’s really okay, we’re not always at the top of the game. The most important thing is that you are trying rather than doing nothing at all. And it’s everything.